Erica De Mane

Mario Ghini’s classic recreated.

When I was a kid the occasional fancy dinners out with my parents were usually free of the stupidity and bitchiness that would crop up at home (“acting up” was less acceptable in public, although certainly not unheard of). This made those evenings extremely memorable for me, and if in addition to the uncharacteristically calm atmosphere, the food was exciting, well, then the moment could even occasionally rise to greatness. Pappagallo’s was a restaurant were this melding of positive forces could occur.

This temple of decorum was run by my father’s good friend Mario Ghini. Elegant Mario from Bologna, with his wavy, prematurely white hair and bright blue eyes was someone my sister and I were in awe of. He seemed so much more refined than most of my father’s friends, I mean, he wasn’t from Port Chester or Bay Ridge, he was actually from Italy. And his restaurant seemed so classy, with its arched doorways and cream-colored walls, notches above the usual Italian places on Long Island in the ’60s and ’70s, most of which resembled suburban dens with their wood paneling and barrel chairs. A birthday dinner at Mario’s was a night of Shirley Temples and treatment so special that a feeling of unworthiness would sometimes slip in to spoil my good time.

Pappagallo’s featured that now basically annoying tableside cooking. Burners on a rolling cart were wheeled right under your face and the show would begin, with food flipped, tossed, and flamed with concentration and drama; fettuccine Alfredo, hot spinach salad, steaks lit with brandy, and zabaglione whisked in a copper bowl by a sweating but nonetheless still intimidating waiter with an indecipherable accent we always assumed was Italian but turned out to be Albanian. This was American Continental dining at its most aggressive.

But what my brother and sister and I remember best, what we still almost drool at the thought of, is Mario’s chicken Pappagallo, his signature dish. It was something ridiculously elegant to a child, because it was meat and fruit-savory and sweet-on one plate, something nobody would ever make at home. The kitchen started with what I now know is referred to as a French-cut chicken breast, the breast with a part of the wing still attached like a little bat. It was sautéed and then bathed in an agro dolce, a very shiny brown sauce, and punctuated with warm, whole green grapes. At the time I considered this so delicious and so fancy I could barely contain myself in anticipation of its arrival at the table. My little brother felt exactly the same way.

My brother, Richie, is now the chef at Leila’s, a lovely bistro north of Los Angeles (neither of us, I guess, could stay out of the kitchen after experiencing Mario’s cooking). We happened to talk about chicken Pappagallo a few weeks ago, and since then I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. I had to get into the kitchen and try to recreate it. Several years ago Richie, in one of his earlier throes of Pappagallo nostalgia, called Mario, who now lives in Florida, to talk about his chicken. Mario had at the ready a printed recipe that he was very happy to send to my brother. Richie was surprised how complicated this recipe turned out to be, a real old-fashioned restaurant dish with various reductions containing fruit juices, brandy, vinegar, and demi-glace, a French brown-sauce concoction. Hearing this I knew I’d want to go about it in a more homey way.

I didn’t have the actual recipe to work from, since my brother seems to have lost it, and I decided not to call Mario to ask for it again, figuring it would be more fun and challenging to go it alone and see what I came up with. My goal was to come up with a version of Mario’s glazed and coddled chicken for the home cook, albeit the sophisticated home cook.

While shopping for ingredients for my first chicken Pappagallo try, I noticed a bottle of verjuice on the shelf right next to the champagne vinegar I was reaching for. I hadn’t considered this ingredient, thinking I would go with a vinegar, lemon, and chicken broth arrangement that would be closer to the original recipe. But this, I thought, could be the key. Verjuice is a concentrated, sour green grape juice used in cooking, mainly to deglaze but also to include in a braise. It’s made by reducing white-wine grape juice. I had never cooked with it before, but I decided to give it a try. Boy, is it sour, not rich and unctuous like the Southern Italian vincotto, a red-wine grape reduction I was more familiar with.

My first tries included chicken stock, but I quickly realized that the lack of demi-glace and the blandness of the white meat made for a boring result. I started adding herbs and shallots and various things that may or may not have been included in the original. The verjuice was sour but lovely, adding just the right amount of acidity, but I still missed that glossiness I knew I’d get only from demi-glace, so I bought a high-quality frozen one. This, along with the verjuice and a good dose of sugar, gave me a hint of the Pappagallo chicken taste, but just a hint.

Eating chicken Pappagallo in 2007 with my husband in our small West Village apartment was a peculiar experience. I was surprised at how clearly my version brought the taste memory of this dish back to me, but what I created was not exactly what I had eaten then. Chicken Pappagallo, I now recall, was a much sweeter thing than I would now prefer; it had almost a New York Thai-food taste, glazed, sugary, and fruity. That old-fashioned “continental” cooking seems very far away from the rustico stuff I now make at home and from the flavors I come in contact with at contemporary Italian restaurants. This elegant but somewhat otherworldly pan-European restaurant cooking tastes unlike anything I usually have nowadays. But I love the recreation of it I’ve come up with.

1/4 cup Wondra flour (a fine ground flour works best for sautéing)
Salt
Black pepper
A few scrapings of nutmeg
A pinch of cayenne
2 French-cut chicken breasts, skinned
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
A small sprig of rosemary, the leaves minced
A sprig of thyme, the leaves chopped
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup seedless green grapes
A splash of brandy
1/4 cup verjuice (I bought an Australian one made by Maggie Beer)
1/4 cup demi-glace (I used one made by D’Artagnan)
A squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Place the flour on a plate, and season it with salt, black pepper, nutmeg, and the cayenne. Coat the chicken lightly with the flour.

In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat. When hot, add the chicken, meat side down, and brown well. Turn and brown the other side. Put the pan in the oven, and roast until just tender, about 10 minutes.

Have all the remaining ingredients prepared and ready next to the stove. Pull the pan from the oven (be careful, as the handle will be really hot), and place the chicken on two dinner plates. Pour any excess fat from the pan, and set the pan over high heat. Add the shallots, garlic, rosemary, and thyme, and sauté quickly. Add the sugar, the grapes, and the brandy, and let it all boil for about a minute. Add the verjuice, and let it bubble about a minute longer. Add the demi-glace, season with a little salt and black pepper, and reduce quickly to a loose glaze. Turn off the heat, and add the remaining tablespoon of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice, and give the pan a swirl. Spoon the grapes onto each piece of chicken, and pour the sauce on top. Serve hot.